


stay low, nothing happens

by the-bi-sokka-club (blametheone)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, How Do I Tag This, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Post-Canon, Ursa (Avatar) is a Good Parent, literally its a post-canon ursa confronts ozai in prison fic, survivor confronts perpetrator, ursa tells ozai he's a prick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blametheone/pseuds/the-bi-sokka-club
Summary: Ozai, wasting away in a damp prison cell, gets a visit from someone he never thought he would see again.
Relationships: Ozai/Ursa (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place a few years after the end of a:tla, zuko and azula are in their very early twenties. this was lifted from a longer fic series i'm working on but i'm not sure how the fic will turn out and also i don't know if i want this to be included so it's getting it's own spotlight.
> 
> the obvious trigger warnings apply - this is literally a survivor of domestic abuse confronting her perpetrator and getting real - but also tw for ozai's flashbacks of the night they killed azulon, mentions of azula spending time in a mental facility, and mentions of hallucinations.
> 
> title taken from stand my ground by within temptation.

There was a draft, just a gasp of a wind through the tunnels of the prison that caught his attention.

He couldn’t quite see it at first, the change in the texture of the walls before him. The lights were always just low enough that the shadows were black, but just light enough that your eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness.

It was the smell that had caught his attention, something herbal and sweet and warm, carried on the gentle wind that had started to chill his bones again. Must be wintertime again.

He heard the shuffle of feet on cobblestone before he heard her voice – _her_ voice.

“You look like shit,” the sudden sound of her voice bounced off the stone walls, ice cold and dripping. Ozai thought for sure it had to be his imagination, but even his dreams and his hallucinations couldn’t be this close to the truth.

When he looked up, finally able to trace the blackened outline of her figure, she looked at him. Ursa hadn’t stepped into the light yet, but even without light to illuminate them, her gold eyes stood out like candles.

“Hello, dearest,” Ozai’s lips curled into a crude grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

The was a beat, a pause, and one of her eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second. Another soft blow of the wind filled his senses with the smell of tea, wafting a warmth over his face.

“You broke your promise, Ozai,” she spoke again, nothing but the emptiness of the room to carry her choked whisper to him.

His face hardened, and he narrowed his eyes just a fraction. He had lost her outline to the shadows again. There was nothing but a soft glow of what might have been her pale hands, and those eyes.

She stepped.

Ursa came forward, stepping out from the shadows into the light of the torches. She was holding a tray with a tea pot and two cups, but Ozai barely noticed it.

In the full light, he blinked with the realisation that this must be real. His memory of her, his dreams of her, his visions of her – they didn’t look like this. Her hair was never this long, and it certainly wasn’t greying. She never had those crow’s feet and smile lines, which maybe were only barely-there in full daylight but were accented by the jumping shadows of the candlelight.

She never wore… whatever it was she was wearing – figure shrouded in thick, flowing black robes, a deep hood laying flat against her shoulders. He could swear that the tunic underneath her coat, he was almost sure it was the same as the one she wore the first day they met. Before the proposal, before the signatures from her parents, before everything.

Ursa sat, calmly, not bothering to keep eye contact with Ozai as she set down the tea tray. His eyes never left her. He was staring, blatantly, confused and concerned.

“Close your mouth, Ozai, it’s not very becoming of a prince to catch flies,” Ursa murmured under her breath, as if she hadn’t verbally poked him with a sharp rod.

Ozai smacked his hands against the bars in a sudden spike of fury, booming, “I am _not_ a prince! I am the _crown ruler!”_

Ursa barely flinched. She looked up at him, hands paused, and smirked until his heavy breathing finally slowed.

“Except that you’re not,” she finally spoke, and Ozai’s left eye twitched. He pulled himself away from the bars dramatically – with a huff and a growl – and crossed his arms.

Ursa gently cradled the teapot in her hands and Ozai watched as steam slowly began to curl from the spout.

His brow furrowed.

“I forgot you were a firebender.”

A brief flash of a memory crossed his mind – Zuko, barely four years old, holding the sides of an iron-cast pot, Ursa’s hands over his. Gentle steam rising from the spout of the teapot. Zuko making those ear-piercing giggles that four-year-olds make, nose brushed against Ursa’s. Her smile, wide and beaming while she mumbled something to him that Ozai couldn’t hear.

Ursa smirked, rolling her eyes with little effort and a small shake of her hair.

“You married the avatar’s granddaughter and never bothered to let her teach the children,” Ursa hummed. “You made sure it was especially clear that my purpose was to breed, not to bend.”

The teapot steamed, and Ursa made a small smile.

“What’s your purpose, Ozai?” she asked, pouring the tea so gently it barely made a sound.

She pushed the cup towards him, and did not pour the second.

There was a moment, a flash of realisation, when Ozai was suddenly aware of what was happening. Ursa’s gaze never wavered, her gold eyes cold as stone.

He reached for the cup.

“You haven’t asked me how I’m doing, yet,” he tutted, letting the steam wash over his face as he held the tea cup under his nose.

Apple. Spices, too, but he could distinctly smell apple. It was an all too familiar recipe.

He could see that night in his head – Ursa’s body wracked with sobs, her face all twisted up and wet at every corner from tears as she worked in the kitchen that Ozai had ordered empty. The way she had openly sobbed, unable to stop, eyes cast to the floor, and handed the pot to him with trembling hands. His father, so gracious for such a lovely tea.

“How are you, Ozai?” she asked, but there was no life in her words, they were cold and empty. A response to an order, not a genuine question.

Ozai gazed into the cup, observing the portion of his reflection on the surface. The draught that haunted the halls brushed over them both, hair blowing in the soft wind.

“I’m tired, Ursa,” he admitted.

Ozai drank the tea.

The cup clinked gently against the stone as he handed it back, scooching his body to the back of the cell where he laid on his side gently.

“I’m tired.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ozai awoke. 

It took him a delayed minute to remember – Ursa’s cold eyes, the hot tea – to realise that he wasn’t _meant_ to wake up, that it should be an impossible feat to wake up at all.

He sat up – bones stiff with the realisation – and Ursa, still waiting in front of his cell, gave a smug wave.

“What? You thought I poisoned the tea?” she smirked.

Ozai’s eyes were wide, mouth agape.

“But-” he stuttered, finger pointing, “Apple!”

His father, thanking him for the tea, accepting it as an apology for Ozai’s “ungrateful” request. His father, hunched over, blood and fluids coming out of his insides in ways that Ozai would never, ever unsee – the apple tea cast aside on the nightstand.

Ursa smirked again, bringing her own cup of tea up to her lips and sipping.

“You don’t _have_ to add the apple seeds in, Ozai, you can have apple in tea without making poison,” she had the nerve to roll her eyes, sipping deeply.

Ozai’s hands were shaking.

“Don’t tell me you’re more afraid of speaking to me than you are afraid of me killing you?” Ursa cocked an eyebrow. 

Ozai pursed his lips.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he snarled. “We have no quarrel.”

His words were like shooting a spear through a flock of birds – the serenity of the moment before the spear lost to the pandemonium it brought.

“ _We_ _have no quarrel?”_ Ursa’s smug facade fell away and she slammed the cup of tea down, eyes not leaving Ozai. “We certainly have a fucking _quarrel_ , Ozai, I have _many_ bones to pick with you, dearest.”

His eyes narrowed but he said nothing, and Ursa was happy to take advantage of the rare opportunity.

“You stole me from my home to use as an _incubation chamber_ , forced me to commit murder and banished me and that’s not even what I’m mad about, you _prick_!” she stood, feet spread in a powerful stance and finger pointing down at him through the bars. 

“You promised,” she huffed, eyes blazing with fury. “You _promised_ that if I left, then no harm would come to my babies.”

Ozai’s face was neutral when he breathed, “And none di-”

“Don’t even _try_ , Ozai!” she cut him off. “You bullied our children into dark places they will never, _ever_ come back from! Azula hallucinates! She spent a _year_ in the mental hospital! Zuko breaks down in tears when someone compliments him and you _burnt his face_ you slimy, lying, lizard-faced fuck!”

Ursa kicked the bars, and Ozai flinched in a way that filled her chest with warm honey.

“You hurt our children in so many ways and you have the nerve to tell me you didn’t let any harm come to them?!”

She stood against the bars, fingers sparking, but her eyes held a fire much more terrifying.

“You thought I came here to poison you?” Ursa pushed her face against the iron, spit flying as she spoke, barely missing him. “Poison would be the easy way out, the _kind_ death. I came here to make things _even_. You deserve to live a long, miserable life. _That’s_ your punishment, _that’s_ your burden to bear. You have to live out the rest of your life knowing how much of a fucking failure you are, and hopeful one day you’ll realise your own darkness and grow past it, mature, get better – so you can live in this cell with the _guilt_ that you deserve!”

Ursa kicked the teapot between the bars, shards of ceramic flying and scalding tea splashing over his skin. Ozai shrieked in pain, clutching his arm, doubled over as the full extent of the pain slowly registered through his skin.

“You deserve this,” Ursa crouched, picking the pieces of ceramic out of his cell where she could reach through the bars. “Your dad was an asshole, and he broke you, fine. But his shortcomings do not make up for yours. They do not excuse the person you’ve become, or what you did. You deserve to hate yourself for the rest of your life.”

Ursa kicked the bars again, standing to full height.

“I’m not letting you out of that punishment early, _dearest_ ,” she spat out the pet name like it burnt her tongue.

Ozai didn’t bother to speak, he just held his arms and steamed quietly.

And Ursa left. 

~*~

Ursa stumbled into the cobblestone halls, quickly murmuring to a guard about the broken ceramic and they immediately began organising moving Ozai to a new cell, while she slid down the wall to her knees, and she wept.


End file.
